Having a large family is a crime!

In the National Catholic Register, writer Pat Archbold opines, “Rutgers University Professor Helen Fisher, of the Center for Human Evolution Studies, has written for Oprah Magazine and [on November 17] was on the Joy Behar Show talking about women making the choice to be childless. She described having lots of children as littering.”

Fisher told Behar that the problem with having children is that there are far too many people on the planet and those who make the choice to be childless are actually doing a great service to the world. Obviously Behar agrees with this attitude, as the same show also featured Laura Scott, creator of the “Childless by Choice Project,” and author Rachel Shukert.

Joy Behar is best known for her participation on Barbara Walters’ The View. In my opinion, Behar’s personal perspective is frighteningly close to that of the Margaret Sanger wing of the eugenics movement.

For example, in a November 2009 segment of Behar’s show, entitled “Addicted to having babies?” she interviewed Rachel Scott of QuiverFull—a ministry devoted to encouraging and supporting large families. Scott, author of Birthing God’s Mighty Warriors, handled herself very well, even when Behar asked her if she thought that having “too many” children is selfish.

The underlying philosophical theme among women who believe that women should not have multiple children is that there are fundamentally sound reasons for choosing not to bear children and absolutely detestable reasons for choosing to have a large family.

National Catholic Register’s Tim Drake addressed this same flawed thought process in his blog, “If you follow the logic of some scientists and environmentalists” you would come to the conclusion that indeed it is a crime to have many children. He was referring, in particular, to Oregon State researcher Paul Murtaugh’s claim that, “In the United States the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than … driving a high mileage car, recycling or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.”

In other words, if you buy into this type of hype intellectually, you will soon believe that you are literally doing a service to mankind by choosing not to have children—which is precisely what the population control movement has been preaching for years and years. Like Sanger, Behar, Fisher and others, the overriding theme is that reproductive choices should be made in such a way that children are not born into this world but eliminated so that the environment can flourish.

Even though this propaganda may focus more concern on plants and fish than on families and sound social policies that encourage large families, the facts do not bear out. All one needs to do is take a close look at Japan, where years of freely available abortion and shrinking family size are today resulting in a growing concern as the Japanese population ages and the workforce shrinks. Trees, plants and animals do not contribute to economic growth, but killing children prior to birth has countless long-term negative consequences.

Demographer Dennis Howard writes, “Unless we end abortion soon, the U.S. faces a long-term economic decline that could prove far worse than the Great Depression.”

Indeed, the challenge before mankind is quite simple. Society must choose between talk of carbon footprints, freedom from children and disdain for large families and affirming the human person as a positive and undeniable resource. There is hope in the family, because without it nothing else will flourish.

This is why we embrace a joyous attitude as pro-child Americans. We agree with the wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI who took note of the growing “demographic deficit” and said on one occasion, “With the Lord there is prosperity and fruitfulness, a family rich with children and serenity, a city well supplied and protected, free from fears and insecurities.”